Oct 31, 202111 min read

Nature Photography by Kristen Ryan (Landscape)

About Me

Hi! I’m Kristen Ryan. I’m from the western suburbs of Chicago where I live with my husband, Dan and our 4 kids, Danny (13), Jake (11 1/2), Sean (8 ½) and Haley (8 ½). We also have a 5 year old golden retriever named Rocky and a cat named Ella. Our house is chaotic and fun in equal parts! I have always loved photography and always took a lot of pictures, but my serious photography learning began toward the end of 2011 just before my twins turned 1. From the very first day I started shooting in manual, I was intrigued and completely absorbed in learning this incredible art.

Why landscape photography?

In the beginning, I was focused on taking better pictures of my kids and capturing all their childhood moments in the most beautiful way possible. In the fall of 2012, I took a trip without kids to my grandparents’ home in Jackson Hole and spent the weekend shooting autumn landscapes. (The image above is a favorite) This was a huge turning point for me as it was when I realized how much I loved landscape photography. I continued to capture my kids but also began to spend time exploring landscapes. As my kids have grown and developed their own ideas of the clothing they want to wear (i.e. unmatching stained fluorescent athletic wear for days on end) and their activities take over most of our after school time, I am so grateful for a genre that not only does not require their cooperation or cuteness, it doesn’t even require their presence. While I love to capture them within the landscape during our travels or activities, I love to get out in nature and simply watch the magic unfold. Creatively capturing the scenes of nature is like a puzzle that captivates me and brings me right into the present moment. I forget to worry about the past or future and find myself fully awed by the magic of the world around us. Awhile back I wrote the following blog post: 7 Reasons Why I Love Landscapes if you care to read more about why I love this genre.

Gear

Landscape Photography tends to involve quite a bit of gear. The following is the gear I tend to carry in my backpack:

- Nikon D850 & Nikon D810 backup

- Nikon 16-35mm f/4, Nikon 24-70 f/2.8, Nikon 70-200 f/2.8, Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 or Signma 14mm f/1.8 for astrophotography

- Promaster Specialist Tripod and/or Gitzo Tripod

- Circular Polarizer from Breakthrough Photography

- Neutral Density Filters (6 stop, 10 stop, 15 stop) from Breakthrough Photography

- 3 stop Graduated Neutral Density filter

- Remote Trigger/Intervalometer

Lens Choice

I carry a number of lenses with me because my favorite lens is the one that best captures the scene in front of me. Sometimes that is my wide angle lens to capture the dramatic skies and wide expanse of a mountain range. Other times it is my telephoto lens to zoom in and capture detail in a distant wave or the light hitting the top of a mountian. You can capture great landscape images with a variety of focal lengths. The best choice is the one that captures the story that is drawing you to press the shutter.

Settings

As with any genre, it is best to try to keep your ISO as low as possible while maintaining proper exposure. It is important in landscape photography to carefully consider your depth of field. While creative depth of field may be used for compelling images, the goal in landscape photography is often to achieve sharp focus throughout the frame. This means closing down your aperture. Generally speaking, my aperture will be between f/8 and f/16, most often in the f/11-f/16 range. My choice will depend on how far away the objects in my scene are from my camera. The closer my foreground, the greater my depth of field must be and the more I will need to close down my aperture. I will also close down my aperture more when I’m looking to shoot long exposures, even sometimes closing it down all the way in order to allow for slow shutters speeds.

In some cases, the shutter speed will only matter for exposure purposes and in these situations, I will set my low ISO and set aperture for depth of field and then set my shutter speed to achieve proper exposure. If I am shooting a scene that needs to freeze the movement of something in the frame, e.g. birds, moving people or vehicles, etc., then I will choose the shutter speed and adjust the ISO and aperture accordingly, still maintaining the necessary depth of field. This may mean choosing the lowest shutter speed needed for freezing movement and the widest aperture that will get sharp focus and perhaps raising the ISO up to 800 or higher. It all depends on the light of the scene.

In other situations, setting my shutter speed for a long exposure may be my priority. In this case, in addition to the use of a neutral density filter, I will set my ISO low at 200, or even 100, and close down my aperture to f/16 or even max it out at f/22. This will depend on the light and how low I want to set my shutter speed.

Light

As with all genres, light can make or break your landscape imagery. Getting out in the right light will raise your landscapes to the next level. The same scene captured during golden hour, sunrise, or sunset will have significantly more impact than if it is photographed during the middle of the day. Get out early and stay out late for the best landscape photography.

Compositional Tips:

- Use the ROT guide when composing your frame. Unless a centered horizon creates needed balance in the frame (e.g. symmetry of a reflection), place the horizon on one of the horizontal ROT guidelines.

- Explore various heights of your tripod or stance as you shoot. Try crouching down and even getting on the ground. Just a slight shift in height can create a different and more compelling image.

- Look for the natural leading lines of the environment. Roads, shorelines, and horizons are just a few lines that may lead a viewer’s eye into the frame and guide their exploration of the image.

- Look for foreground interest to add impact and depth. Including various layers from close to far in your image will add depth and draw the viewer’s eye more strongly into the scene. Some foreground may detract and distract however, so look for rocks, shorelines, grasses, flowers, etc. and other foreground that complement and add to your frame.

- Framing not only adds foreground interest but also helps to lead the eye to the main subject within the frame. (See image on the next page for framing)

The trees create a frame around the sunrise and the waves and add depth in the foreground.

Long Exposures

Long Exposures are my favorite landscape technique to photograph. There is some extra gear required to shoot at slow shutter speeds. tripod: To shoot slow shutter speeds and get a sharp frame, a tripod is necessary. Any tripod that will allow you to keep the camera steady will work. If you plan to travel or hike with your tripod, I recommend a compact and light tripod. Carbon fiber is the best option for a light travel tripod.

Tripod: To shoot slow shutter speeds and get a sharp frame, a tripod is necessary. Any tripod that will allow you to keep the camera steady will work. If you plan to travel or hike with your tripod, I recommend a compact and light tripod. Carbon fiber is the best option for a light travel tripod.

Neutral Density Filters: Unless shooting in extremely low light, you will need a neutral density filter to slow the shutter speed to a second and longer. I keep 6 stop, 10 stop, and 15 stop ND filters in my bag for a variety of different effects that I will share on the next few pages. Depending on the scenes you expect to shoot and the effect you want to create, you may want to invest in these filters. There are many brands of filters. The one that I use is Breakthrough Photography.

Remote or intervalometer: A remote will be a great tool for triggering your shutter without risking camera shake. You can also use the timer on your camera. An intervalometer remote allows you to program exposures longer than 30 seconds when your camera is set in bulb mode. It also lets you program the remote to trigger multiple shots.

Choosing the Right Neutral Density Filter

Neutral Density filters block light from the camera sensor. There are many ND filters of varying strength which block anywhere from 2 stops to 15 stops of light. In landscape photography, we use ND filters to reduce the light coming into our camera sensor so that we can slow down the shutter speed for creative effect. The ND filters that I always carry in my bag are 6 stop, 10 stop and 15 stop filters from Breakthrough Photography. The one that I need at any given time depends on the light of the scene, the subject I am photographing and the creative effect I am envisioning in my frame.

6 Stop Filter

A 6 stop filter is perfect for a number of situations where you want to reduce your shutter speed to the .4 second to 5 second range. I use my 6 stop filter when I want to create abstract photos of water or trees by using a panning technique. The 6 stop filter is perfect for photographing waves and water when I don’t want to freeze the motion but I want to keep some shape, texture and detail in the water. This is a technique I love to use at the ocean, lakes or rivers. It is also perfect for smoothing the water of waterfalls to create a soft flow. The longer exposures of 5-10 seconds will create a very smooth effect while less than 5 seconds leaves a little more texture in the water. In very low light, the 6 stop can allow an exposure of 10 seconds or more, but in brighter light, the 10 stop will be needed.

.4 seconds

1 second

1.6 seconds

1 second

.3 seconds

1 second

10 stop filter

The 10 stop is my go to filter for exposures 15 seconds and longer. In daylight, the 10 stop is needed for these creative long exposures of water or clouds. Imagine those super smooth waters and wispy clouds. Those are when I pull out my 10 stop filter.

3 minute exposure

30 second exposure

15 Stop Filter

The 15 stop filter is the filter I need for creating dynamic wispy clouds during the daylight. This filter will allow me to shoot 3-6 minutes of clouds and capture creative clouds even with slow moving clouds.

4 minute exposure

Here are two useful apps for help calculating shutter speeds with Neutral Density filters. These are iphone apps but there should also be apps for non apple products too if you search.

Recommended Steps for Long Exposures

When I began shooting long exposures, I was unaware of the helpful phone apps and also found it too time consuming to do the math of calculating 10 stops, so I generally ‘winged’ it. I maxed out my ISO and closed down my aperture and just took a test shot and adjusted from there. Over time I have developed a feel for where my settings will be. The longer the exposure you are going for, the more helpful it is to know you are in the right ballpark though so you don’t end up with a white or black frame! I have found that the apps aren’t always perfect either, but it will help you get a good start.

So here are steps I recommend:

1) Decide what effect you are going for to choose which ND filter you need. Will you be trying to shoot a very long exposure for wispy clouds? Or will you be trying to capture a shorter long exposure of moving water?

2) Set up your composition using a tripod and find a starting shutter speed without the filter by setting your ISO at 200 and your aperture at f/16. The shutter speed that gives you proper exposure will be the shutter speed you put into your long exposure calculator.

3) Enter the shutter speed and the ND filter you will use into the app. For example, if your base shutter speed is 1/60 and you will use a 6 stop filter, your new shutter speed will be 1 second. If the resulting shutter speed is not as low as you want, you could close down the aperture more or reduce ISO to 100 and recalculate. Set the new shutter speed on your camera.

4) Find focus with your desired composition. With a 6 stop filter you can see through the camera to set composition and focus but with a 10 stop or 15 stop filter, you won’t be able to.

5) Put the filter on the lens.

6) Cover the viewfinder with a black cloth or if your camera has a little door to cover it, close the door. (The Nikon D810 and D850 have a little switch to cover the viewfinder) Covering the viewfinder prevents undesireable light leaks.

7) Trigger the shutter with a remote trigger or by using the timer on your camera to avoid even the smallest camera shake.

A Few Additional Tips:

- Expose to the right of the histogram without blowing the highlights to ensure proper exposure and the best image quality.

- Consider the movement in the frame. If an area of the frame shows undesireable blur, consider taking an image of the same exact composition with a faster shutter speed. For example, you capture a long exposure of a waterfall but the foliage around it is blurred in the wind. Take one exposure with a slow shutter for the movement of the water and a second exposure with a fast shutter to freeze the movement of the foliage and composite them.

- Experiment with various shutter speeds to see what your favorite creative effect is for the scene.

Long Exposures & Water

Moving water is so fun to experiment with various shutter speeds. Shooting fast shutter speeds freezes the motion and maintains all the detail and texture. Shutter speeds around .4 seconds to 1-2 seconds, depending on the speed of the water, will smooth the water but maintain some texture, shape and detail. The more you increase the exposure time, the smoother the water will get until eventually a dreamy softness is created. The rougher the waves of a lake or ocean, the longer the exposure must be to create this softness.

Whether you want to maintain some texture & movement is up to your creative vision. I could spend a long time out by the ocean experimenting with different shutter speeds and timing the click of the shutter button with different wave movement.

5 second exposure with a 10 nd stop filter

1 second exposure with a 6 stop nd filter

60 second exposure with a 10 stop nd filter

Long Exposures & Clouds

One of my favorite things to do when there are clouds is to use my 10 or 15 stop filter to capture long exposures of clouds. With fast moving clouds, you can sometimes see movement with a 15 second exposure but I usually shoot 30 seconds to several minutes to show movement of clouds. Really slow moving clouds will need at least a minute or more to get nice streaks across the frame. Occasionally clouds already have the look of long exposure clouds and shooting long exposures won’t do much to change the scene. The more you practice, the more you develop a feel for the effect you’ll get with different clouds.

2 minutes 20 seconds with a 10 stop nd filter

Taken in two different locations but on the same morning of clouds, these show the difference in the clouds with different shutter speeds.

1/200 seconds

30 seconds with a 10 stop ND filter

6 minute exposure with a 15 stop ND filter

Final Thoughts

Landscape photography is a fantastic way to get out in nature and explore the beauty of the world. It can be very t herapeutic and meditative as well. My top tip for capturing impactful landscape photography is to capture what speaks to you. In any scene you are capturing, there is something or some number of things that are drawing you to that scene. Perhaps it is the overwhelmingly wide expanse of the land, the way the light is hitting the trees, the curve of a wave, or the formation of the clouds at the tip of a mountain. Hone in on the beauty that is speaking to you and use your tools to capture the scene in a way that highlights those details. Listen to your inner voice and follow it. Always shoot for yourself, to satisfy your own inner artistic voice. Remember to be safe and leave no trace so we all can continue to enjoy the beauty of the natural world. Looking forward to seeing your nature images!